Matthew 9:35-10:15
Proper 6 / Year A
As you enter a house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come
upon it. Matthew 10:13
When I say “shalom aleichem”, you say “wa alaykumu
as-salaam.” Shalom aleichem! Wa alaykumu as-salaam. Not bad.
Maybe this will feel more natural: Peace be with you… and also with
you. “Shalom aleichem” is an ancient
Middle East greeting dating back several millennia. It means “Peace be with you.” The response, “wa alaykumu as-salaam”,
equally ancient, translates as “and peace be upon you as well.” You may recall every time Jesus appears to
his disciples after the Resurrection he greets them by saying, “Peace be with
you”… Shalom Aleichem.
In biblical times it was more than a polite social salutation;
more than a fancier version of “What’s happening” or “How you doing?” Shalom
Aleichem and its response was a deep, meaningful spiritual transaction which
made manifest very tangible commitments.
We see this clearly expressed in today’s reading from Genesis. Abraham goes to extraordinary lengths to
extend hospitality to his guests because, at the time, visitors are understood
to be sent by God. They, in turn, extend
the gift of fertility, promising the barren Sarah will be with child before
they return again. At the time, a host’s
generosity and welcome are considered to be sacred duties and the blessing of
peace is offered in return for the kindness shown.
The biblical word translated here as peace has
its roots in Greek mythology and relates to three sisters: Eirene, which means peace,
Eunomia, which means good ordering as in a fair distribution of possessions,
and Dike, which means justice. Thus, to extend peace, was to concern yourself
with the needs and rights of the person you bless. It was not a passive wish, but an obligation
to be fair and just in your dealings with another.
You may recall how the Genesis story goes on from the
end of today’s reading. Abraham’s
visitors travel to Sodom where they are welcomed by his nephew Lot. The residents of the city, however, want to
submit them to domination through violent acts, the exact opposite of shalom,
and are condemned for failing to receive the visitors gracefully. They violate the sacred duty of hospitality. They care not at all for the needs nor the
rights of their guests.
Because I find his social analysis of our times to be
compelling, I am reading David Brook’s book How to Know Another Person: The
Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen. He contends…
…the quality of our lives and the health of our
society depend, to a large degree, on how well we treat each other… There is one skill that lies at the heart of any
healthy person, family, school, community organization, or society – to accurately
know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood. That is at the heart of being a good person,
the ultimate gift you can give to others and to yourself.
And while we are enmeshed in all manner of relationships
from casual to intimate and from broad to specific, it is becoming more and
more difficult for us to “see” another person as he or she truly is. The number of Americans who report feeling
lonely has been on the rise for some time and Brooks notes since the pandemic the
average person spends less than three hours a week with friends. Loneliness, he says, gives birth to sadness
and sadness, unattended, morphs into meanness.
This leads to distrust and low-trust societies, Brooks notes, tend to
fall apart because it lacks the basic social fabric required to hold it
together. Given all of this, is it any
wonder the biblical concept of shalom falls on deaf ears in today’s world.
Brooks holds our primary challenge is a moral one. For centuries, he says, the main goal of
formation was to “turn out people of character, people who would be honest,
gentle, and respectful toward those around them.” He identifies three concepts we used to hold
as central:
· Helping people to learn how to restrain their
selfishness in order to incline their hearts to care more about others.
· Helping people to find a purpose so their life has
stability, direction, and meaning.
· Teaching the basic social and emotional skills so you
can be kind and considerate to the people around you.
So, selflessness, purpose, and kindness.
Since World War II, however, there has been a steady
shift away from the emphasis on moral formation toward individual achievement. Our schools, for example, care less about
character and more about SOL scores. Brooks
cites a 1966 study which found 90% of college students where strongly motivated
to develop a meaningful philosophy of life.
In 2015, 82% of students indicated their most important goal in life was
being well-off financially. “In short,”
Brooks says, “several generations, including my own, have not been taught the
skills they would need in order to see, understand, and respect other people
with depth and dignity.” This, he says,
has produced “disconnection, alienation, and a culture in which cruelty is
permitted.”
All of this is to say we live in a time now, perhaps
more than ever, when our society desperately needs people of faith who pray
sincerely God will make them an instrument of peace, sowing love where there is
hatred, pardon where there is injury, union where there is discord, faith where
there is doubt, hope where there is despair.
The world needs people of faith who will seek to console rather than to be
consoled, to understand more than to be understood, to love more than to be
loved. As St. Francis said, it is in giving
that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying
that we are born to eternal life.
Just as Jesus sent out his first followers to impart
peace wherever they went, so too Jesus sends you and Jesus sends me. If you want to live your faith once you leave
this place, let it be manifested as peace; the kind of peace which offers
fairness and justice. Shalom
Aleichem! Wa alaykumu as-salaam.
